Unscheduled: Ameego’s blog forrestaurant people

Now that you’re using Ameego for scheduling (RIGHT?!) you have a lot more time on your hands to focus on the other things that go into making a restaurant successful, like marketing! A strong knowledge of how to promote your business is key to making sure your restaurant stays full, but where do you start?

Are you glued to your phone? It’s okay to admit that you are, and you’re not the only one. We all know that mobile devices are here to stay, but did you know that they’re actually replacing desktop devices when it comes to accessing the web? According to Entrepreneur Magazine Online, in December 2017, 56.74 percent of internet traffic came from mobile devices (including tablets). That’s huge! While mobile responsive websites were once a nice to have now they’re a requirement, and companies are adding app versions of their sites alongside them as a clean and efficient way to access their content.

Most of the time, when we talk about time theft, we’re hearing it from the point of view of owners: Employees are skirting the rules to show they’ve worked more hours than they really have, and that’s costing me money.

What we don’t always think about is the other kind of time theft, the kind where staff are being stolen from.

Restaurants are a world of their own, with a language and safety standards you just won’t find anywhere else. Given all that, it’s hard enough for people born here to find their place in the kitchen or front of house, never mind for those who speak English as a second language.

With some estimating that more than a third of kitchen and fast food workers are non-natives, the restaurant industry enjoys incredible diversity, but also challenges when it comes to training.

How can your restaurant break through language barriers to successfully train and develop team members who aren’t native English speakers?

When it comes to finding and keeping great kitchen staff—a challenge that’s reached near crisis levels in some areas in recent years—the restaurant industry faces a hard and simple truth: Wages are too low and the hours are too long.

This week I read an article from the Harvard Business Review entitled “Culture is not the Culprit.” The gist of its argument is that – contrary to what many corporate leaders and consultants are preaching – when a company is struggling, fixing its culture is not the magic solution to all its troubles.

Now, to a certain degree, I agree with the idea that culture is an outcome and not a solution. But I think this particular article is missing the point a little bit.